


Daredevil: Dog Sitter Extraordinaire

by Corpium



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Post-Season/Series 02, no dogs were harmed in the making of this fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-01 12:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6520372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corpium/pseuds/Corpium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The labored breath of a wounded man echoes through the line. Sand rolls and crunches beneath combat boots, and wind whips through the speaker of the caller’s cheap cell phone. Machine guns fire. </p><p>“Three fifty one Rosalind Street, apartment 2C,” says Castle’s rough, tinny voice. “I need you to take care of my dog till I get back.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I know the dog's name should be Max, but I changed it to Loot (like Frank's coyote in the comics) because Max and Matt sound too similar imo and I kept switching their names up accidentally. So. Loot, not Max.

The phone rings right before Matt pulls the cord. It rings and rings and rings, and all he can think is _Foggy?_

“You’ve reached the firm of Nelson & Murdock!” says the answering machine with Foggy’s voice. “Where justice is always blind. Literally! Please leave a message at the beep.”

_Beep._

The labored breath of a wounded man echoes through the line. Sand rolls and crunches beneath combat boots, and wind whips through the speaker of the caller’s cheap cell phone. Machine guns fire.

Definitely not Foggy then.

“Three fifty one Rosalind Street, apartment 2C,” says Castle’s rough, tinny voice. “I need you to take care of my dog till I get back.”

Matt’s mouth falls open, and he reaches for the phone.

An explosion rocks through the phone on Castle’s end, and the line goes dead. The answering machine beeps.

Matt stands there for a moment, hand poised over the phone. Either a) Frank was trying to contact Karen at the law firm he no doubt knows she no longer works for, b) Frank was trying to contact his old lawyers about his dog at their disbanded law firm, or c) Frank knows who Matt is. And he needs Daredevil to take care of his dog. That, or “dog” is code for something else that needs to be taken care of.

Well, shit.

 

o-o-o

 

Matt half-expects to find a half-dead victim of the Punisher’s waiting for him in the anonymous apartment Frank listed, but it really is just the dog.

“Hey, buddy,” Matt murmurs, kneeling down to scratch him behind the ears. He gets dog-breath and a tongue in his face for his trouble. Tags jingle, and Matt feels the engravings on them. “LOOT” says one; the other lists a recent rabies vaccination.

Matt finds Loot some food and listens to him eat, utterly clueless. Matt’s never had any pets before — not even a goldfish.

He calls Karen. “How do you take care of a dog?”

“Did you find a dog during one of your jogs?” She calls his crime-fighting jogging and thinks it’s funny. Matt doesn’t. “Because if you did I suggest you drop it off at a shelter. I don’t know if your life is really… stable enough for pet ownership. Not that I don’t think you’re stable!” she hurries to say. “You are. In your own way. I just—“

“It’s fine,” Matt assures her. “I’m dog-sitting.”

“Really?” she asks. “For who?”

Matt holds back a sigh. Karen and Foggy aren’t the only people he knows. He knows others, okay? He knows a lot of people.

…They just don’t know him.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says.

“Aw, come on, Matt. Tell the truth. Unless it’s one of those things where you really, _really_ can’t. In which case, just tell me so and I’ll leave you alone.” 

She’s taken the truth so much better than Foggy, and he promised to keep the secrets to a minimum, so…. “The dog belongs to a mutual acquaintance. I’m surprised he didn’t ask you to take care of it, to be honest.”

There’s a long pause while Karen takes a moment to think. “Is this mutual acquaintance a serious gun enthusiast?”

“Yeah,” says Matt, drawing the word out, and Karen sighs.

“He probably didn’t ask me to do it so he could protect me or some shit.” Matt tries not to wince at his own guilt that sentence stirs up. Karen continues, unaware, “Also I miiiight have told him he was dead to me?" Oh, wow. Matt's not touching that one. "Ah, haha. Well, I’m pretty busy anyway, so I don’t think I’d have the time to look after an animal even if he did ask.”

“Yeah? What are you working on?”

“Just a hunch right now,” she says, cagey. “I don’t want to talk about it until I know for sure, you know?”

Matt does want to know, but they’ve got rules now. Share as much as possible, but don’t push it. They've both agreed that some secrets need to be kept until they’re ready to be told. “Okay. So any advice then?”

“Oh, God, right, I haven’t had a dog since I was a kid, but…. I don’t know — food, attention, exercise. They’re kinda like toddlers, you know?”

Matt does not know. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.” They exchange goodbyes, and Matt turns his attention back to Loot.

He can feel the dog watching him expectantly, its tail wagging disturbing the air.

Matt punches things. He breaks bones and sets bodies aflame. He protects people, but he doesn’t take care of them. Not unless he’s stitching them up. He doesn’t… do stuff like this.

Loot barks, and Matt draws a hand down his face.

What the hell is he supposed to do with this?

 

o-o-o

 

Loot would make a shit guide dog. He zigzags everywhere, startles at fire hydrants, and cowers behind Matt’s legs at the mere sight of yappity chihuahuas tucked inside ladies’ purses.

This is the big bad Punisher’s dog.

Amazing.

 

o-o-o

 

Matt can’t afford to fall asleep in the dumpster. He needs to feed the dog.

 

o-o-o

 

It’s funny, how people approach Matt differently when he’s walking Loot. People in the streets and parks ignore Matt when he’s alone. Men on cell phones run into him; women duck their heads and give him a wide berth; parents shuffle their kids out of the way with hushed admonishments; teenage boys laugh and imitate him once they think he’s out of earshot.

But when he has a dog, even one as scarred and skittish as Loot, people approach him more often. “Can I pet your dog?” kids ask when they meander all the way down through Central Park. Young women coo at Loot, sometimes touching Matt on the arm to tell him what a sweet pup he has.

An old man tells his granddaughter to leave the dog alone and lectures her about service dogs; Matt gently corrects them and lets her pet Loot, who preens under the attention.

“That dog’s seen some fights, hasn’t it?” asks the old man. 

“He’s a rescue,” Matt says.

“You look like you’ve seen some, too, if it’s okay for me to say.”

Matt resists the urge to touch his bruised cheek. “Rough neighborhood.”

“Kids these days,” says the man, leaning in and speaking too softly for his distracted granddaughter to hear. His breath smells like dentures and mint tooth paste. “Now I’m not saying when I was young I never went through some rough patches myself, if you know what I’m saying, but I never went after no blind men.”

Matt’s… not really sure how to respond to that.

“What neighborhood, did you say?” asks the man.

“Uh, Hell’s Kitchen.”

The man’s voice sharpens. “You catch any names when they jumped you?”

Honestly, what is happening? “No. No, I didn’t.”

The man hums. “I’ll give my grandkids a talking to. Tell’em to look out for you. Y’seem like a good kid. Don’t deserve no trouble.”

Matt smiles weakly. “I don’t think anyone deserves any trouble, really.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” The man leans down, back creaking, and scratches Loot behind the ears. “But we find it anyway, don’t we, pup?” Loot pants, tail whacking Matt’s left leg, and the old man coos. “Yeah, you’re a good boy, aren’t ya? You’re a good boy.”

Loot barks, and the man laughs.

The little girl tugs on Matt’s pant legs. “Does he do tricks?”

“I—I don’t know. I just got him.”

“Oh. Sit!” she tells Loot. Loot just keeps wagging his tail.

“Guess you gotta teach him some, huh?” she asks.

“Yeah, yeah, I guess I do.”

 

o-o-o

 

It’s been a week since he closed down the office and accidentally became Frank Castle’s dog sitter, and Matt’s still not really sure what to do without Foggy by his side. He’s not sure how to get his own clients — well, he is sure. He knows how to get his own clients, he does. He knows he _could_ if he would just open his own tiny little one-man firm and put himself out there.

He just doesn’t want to. He can’t bring himself to.

He’s pretty sure he still has enough of his inheritance left to pay his rent for the next couple months. He has time.

He doesn’t try to see Foggy, and Karen keeps getting busier and busier, more secretive while admitting to being secretive. She makes Matt promise to let her “handle this” on her own, whatever “this” is, and since she doesn’t sound terrified for her life, Matt does. For now.

He has other problems to take care of, anyway, like the Hand and Fisk’s return and Loot. Daredevil work makes a great distraction. He’s only Matt Murdock now when he’s taking care of the dog, it seems like.

 

o-o-o

 

Fuck.

He does not have enough left in his inheritance fund to pay rent.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“I’m really sorry, man,” his landlord says. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you — look, I even left a notice for you in actual braille — it’s not my fault if you're never around to see it. Or uh, to notice it. Or to answer the door when I knock. Or to even, you know, answer your phone.”

He leaves Matt alone in his apartment, or what used to be his apartment. Furniture, clothes, dishes, blankets, shower supplies, his dad’s uniform — what is he supposed to do with all this?

What is he supposed to do?

He can’t call Foggy. Foggy would surely help even though he’d hate Matt for it, but Matt can’t be a burden to him anymore.

He calls Karen.

“Oh, shit, Matt, I’m so sorry,” she says. “God, I wish I could offer you a place to stay, I really, _really_ do, but, uh, some —stuff— came up, and I—“ she’s not lying. “I’m really sorry. I can’t, right now.”

“Are you okay?” He listens closely and detects another, oddly familiar heartbeat, its owner calm and collected, beside Karen.

Karen laughs, a little too high-pitched. “Yeah, totally. I’m — I’m great, actually. That case you know, everything is going great with it. It’s why I can’t — it’s complicated.” Again, she’s hiding something, but she’s not lying.

Matt sighs. “Okay. You’ll let me know if you’re in trouble, right?”

“Yeah. I will. Thanks, Matt.”

Matt stands in the middle of the room, lost, once the call’s over.

Fuck.

 

o-o-o

 

He lugs one suitcase full of essentials and his dad’s boxing case up into Castle’s apartment. He should probably find out how Castle was paying rent — it’s been a couple months now, and he’s seriously beginning to think Frank’s dead.

But for now, it’s better than nothing. It’s kind of nice, actually, to have Loot sleeping on the floor next to him. Matt almost feels safer.

Robinhood really knew what he was doing, Matt discovers. Stealing from bad guys doesn’t exactly pay the bills — whatever those bills even are — but it keeps him and Loot fed, so that’s good enough for him.

This isn’t the life he imagined, but at least with Loot at his side he’s not _totally_ drowning in depression. Baby steps, right?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you soooo much for all the comments, guys! I really appreciate your enthusiasm :))) #motivation

“The fuck—?” Frank mutters, stalled in the doorway. He’s had a longass few months and all he wants to do is stitch himself up, make himself a proper cup of coffee, and pet his damn dog. What he doesn’t want is anything to do with the unconscious vigilante bleeding out on his couch, suit on sans mask.  

 _What the fuck._ He blinks, wondering if sleep deprivation’s making him hallucinate again.

But no, Frank’s not hallucinating. He should’ve known that he was letting the actual Devil in, asking him to take care of Loot like that. _When you give a mouse a cookie_ , he thinks before he can stop himself, then promptly crushes that line of thought in favor of the dull pain pulsing through the torn muscle of his shoulder.

Fingers tightening around the doorknob, he’s tempted to ditch the wannabe-martyr and find himself a new safe house, but Loot trots over from the couch and whines at his feet. Frank shuts the door, kneels down and gives the dog a good scratch behind the ears.

“Frank,” says Murdock, his voice hoarse and quiet like he hasn’t spoken in days, and it’s fucking weird, seeing Red without the mask. Frank knows, rationally, that Murdock and Daredevil are the same person, has known it since the day the damn lawyer opened that mouth of his in the hospital, but it’s still unsettling to think of Daredevil the fighting machine and Matt Murdock the soft-spoken lawyer as one and the same. Yet there the man is, opening his ridiculous eyes and staring sightlessly at Frank, the corners of his lips tight with pain. “I thought you were dead,” he says.

Frank snorts. Not like Red’d be the first. “Yeah,” he says, standing up and taking in the suitcase and box of files sitting in a corner of the room. “I can see that.”

Murdock heaves himself up onto his elbows, body shaking and listing into the back of the couch. Fresh blood shines on his torso. “I’ll go.” Even his goddamn voice shakes — barely, like he’s trying to hide it. But Frank’s always been perceptive.

He sighs. He didn’t save Daredevil’s life so the dumb shit could go and die on his couch.

“Stay put,” he says as he heads toward the bathroom. Murdock keeps trying to stand, so Frank pushes him back down by the shoulder as he passes. “Idiot,” he grumbles as Murdock gasps in pain.

He finds the medical kit right where he left it in the bathroom, but it’s missing half the supplies he remembers. “Fuckin’ squatter,” he mutters under his breath, a sliver of amusement tugging at the corner of his lips. “Christ.”

He brings the kit out to Murdock, who’s sat up (but stayed put at least; maybe his stubbornness can yet be curbed) and started stripping the upper half of his costume off via a complex series of buttons and zippers. “I’ll stitch it myself,” Murdock says.

Frank sets the kit in front of Murdock on top of the industrial coffee table and pops it open. “Good. I ain’t exactly Florence Nightingale, y’know,” he says. He still has a couple wounds of his own left to take care of anyway.

But first, coffee. He starts a pot, Loot on his heels. Dog’s probably afraid Frank’s gonna up and disappear again. Frank’s gotta get the poor guy some toys or something to keep him occupied.

He reaches for a mug in the cupboard and hesitates, fingers brushing the handle of the other one — he only has two mugs, and one’s a backup just in case the first breaks. “You want coffee?”

“No, thanks.” The way Murdock speaks makes Frank glance back at him. Frank hasn’t heard his voice sound like this before, not as his lawyer and definitely not as Daredevil. Matt Murdock the lawyer spoke with quiet confidence and carried a sense of gravitas while he preached. He had an air of the unassailable. And Daredevil — Daredevil growled and demanded and pleaded with this — this voice of ragged-edged fury, barely restrained in its power, almost innocent in its violence.

Now, defeat underscores the man’s soft voice. Frank watches while Murdock threads the needle through the torn skin of a puncture wound. Vulnerability pulls on his shoulders, and exhaustion’s eaten away at his body, leaving only muscle and scar tissue. He’s like a half-starved wolf in winter, lean and dangerous in its desperation.

Frank grits his teeth and turns away from the sheer _loss_ of him. He pours himself a cup of coffee and downs half of it. Nothing like black coffee to wash out the taste of blood and grit.

Loot jumps up on the counter and sniffs at Frank’s mug. “Ge’off,” Frank grunts at him, shoving him down and patting him on the head when he stays put on the floor. He raises his voice. “You let him pick up any other bad habits, Red?”

“He likes to sleep on your mattress.”

“Figures.” Frank fills the other mug with water and sets it in front of Murdock. “Move over.” He fishes disinfectant out of the med kit and drops onto the end of the couch.

Murdock stills at the movement.

Loot settles at Frank’s feet while he gets to his stitching, Murdock following suit. The silence hangs comfortably around them, and Frank wonders how long it’ll take Murdock to break it.

It takes two minutes. “You seem calm,” Murdock says.

Frank grins, sharp and grim. “There’s something real satisfying about taking down a human trafficking ring, you know?”

Murdock hums. “Guess I can’t argue with that.”

But he wants to. His voice belies him, taut with judgement. As long as he keeps his opinions to himself, though, Frank won’t bring it up.

He watches in fascination as Murdock snips the thread with a tiny pair of scissors and knots up the wound on his side, eyes aimed only in its general direction. “For a while I wondered if you were faking,” Frank says.

Murdock doesn’t pretend not to know what he’s referring to. “‘For a while’?”

Frank shrugs. “Yeah. Figured the glasses mighta been a good cover. But here you are, nothing to hide….” He sips his coffee; remembers the burning scrape of Daredevil’s suit against his knuckles. “Remember the second time I got the drop on you?”

Murdock shifts, angling his body towards Frank. “The roof?”

“When I took you down right before that. After we fell through the window.”

Murdock’s expression doesn’t change, eyes soulful yet somehow detached. No wonder he hides them behind the mask. No one could mistake him for the Devil with those eyes. “Hard to forget.”

“You did this thing with your head,” Frank says, turning his gaze back to his needle and thread. “Angling it around, searching, like you were some sort of fucking homing device. Trying to find me in the room, all like.” Frank laughs, just once, low and quick. “And then you put up your fists, yeah, like you were gonna punch me. But you weren’t even facing me anymore.”

Murdock stays quiet.

“I thought you’d hit your head,” Frank says. “That the fall did a real number on you.” Frank finishes his line of stitches. He bites the thread to hold it steady, the pull on his torn skin stinging, then snaps it.

“Well, you weren’t wrong,” Murdock murmurs.

“Not completely, I guess.” Frank knots the gash shut and puts the med kit back together. “So how d’ya do it? You superhuman or something?”

Murdock settles back into the couch. “I don’t think so.” He looks, or aims his gaze at, Frank supposes, the ceiling. “I just... use my other senses.”

“Huh.” Frank lets it drop. He picks up his coffee and leans back, sipping slowly. Waiting.

Red grabs the mug of water and drinks, hands trembling. He seems a bit out of his element.

Good. Fucker’s gonna mooch off Frank, he better be nervous about it.

Murdock finally breaks. “Aren’t you going to ask?”

Frank’s not the type to play stupid. “Depends. You prepared to answer?”

Murdock stays silent, and Frank — Frank never cared about Daredevil’s secret identity. But seeing Murdock like this, Murdock who was so stoic and steadfast in the hospital, who was so _alive_ as Daredevil, it’s not right, how he is now. And Frank can’t help but be a little curious. “You’ve seen me at rock-bottom, Murdock. Whatever you’ve got going on, s’not like I’m gonna judge.” Not unless Daredevil’s running around killing innocents. But really, that’s impossible. For all the darkness Frank sees in the world, he can’t see Murdock joining it.

“You saw her die.” Murdock swallows, voice hushed and strained. “Didn’t you?”

Frank remembers his wife, remembers Lisa. And then he remembers a body on the concrete, and a familiar look on Murdock’s face. “Yeah.”

“Her name was Elektra.” Murdock’s voice comes out barely more than a whisper. “She knew me. She knew... all of me, like no one else ever did.” He draws a leg up, making himself smaller. “Even the... the difficult parts of me, the edges and scars. And now….” He looks a second away from tears, lips trembling, and Frank wants to shoot something because he should not be —he should not be feeling. “I don’t know what to do,” Murdock says.

Frank curses himself for being a weak-hearted bastard, and yet he opens his damn mouth anyway. “Looks like you already do, or you wouldn’t be here stitchin’ yourself up.” He nods at Loot. “Whether it’s taking care of a dumb dog or knocking heads together, you sink your teeth into whatever keeps your clock ticking and you never let go.”

Looks like he’s gotta buy supplies for two now. Dammit. He heaves himself off the couch and grabs the med kit. “You wanna sleep on the couch, you clean the blood out first.”

Stunned, Murdock’s mouth falls open. “I'm not asking to stay here.”

Frank scoffs. “You got somewhere else to stay?”

Murdock folds inward like a kicked puppy. Jesus Christ.

“I might disappear for a few days at a time every now and again,” Frank says. “And it’s not like I’m about to hire a dog sitter or put’im up in a kennel.”

“I’m not exactly the most reliable person ever,” Murdock says dryly.

“You’ll do,” says Frank with all the certainty of a crack-shot. And it’s not a lie — he does need someone to take care of his dog, and if anyone’s gonna keep Loot from being dognapped by people like the Irish then Murdock’s his best bet.

Loot shoves his head into Murdock’s lap, and Murdock pets him thoughtfully. “...Okay,” he says quietly, and it unsettles Frank. This sense of defeat, coming from Red — it’s just not right.

But there’s nothing he can do about it. Murdock will either pull himself together, or he won’t. 

Frank puts the med kit away in the bathroom and pauses in the doorway, looking over Murdock’s tousled helmet-hair and too pale skin.

First Loot, now this. If Maria could see him now, she’d be laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. This story's running away from me so hard. Also, wow, I really like Frank's perspective, guys. Hope it worked for you.

**Author's Note:**

> Geek out with me on my [tumblr](http://www.corpium.tumblr.com) :)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **[Please leave a comment on your way out.]**


End file.
